Why Bad Blood is back on Amazon’s bestseller charts after the Elizabeth Holmes documentary

John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood returned to the top of three Amazon bestseller categories on October 19, Variety reported, as Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything drew attention to the Theranos story. The 2018 book examines Holmes and the blood-testing startup she founded.

Variety put the book at No. 1 in biomedical engineering, business infrastructure and venture capital, and No. 3,048 among all books on Amazon. Those are retailer chart positions reported for that date, rather than sales figures.

Why Bad Blood is back in the spotlight

Fielder told WIRED that work on the documentary had been kept secret for three years. WIRED reported that it appeared as a surprise addition to the Telluride Film Festival in early September, before its wider theatrical release. Its arrival has put a new film alongside the book that documented the rise and collapse of Theranos.

What John Carreyrou said about the film

Carreyrou, whose investigation helped expose Theranos, called the documentary ‘a great film’ in an October 18 social-media post, according to Business Insider. The outlet also reported that he wrote a New York Times opinion piece about the filmmakers’ access to Holmes and his concerns for his safety. His response adds a notable voice to the discussion around a film revisiting the subject of his book.

Bad Blood was already a major bestseller before this return to Amazon’s category charts: Variety reported that it became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller after publication and spent more than 100 weeks on the newspaper’s bestseller lists. Variety said Theranos dissolved in 2018 after its one-time $9 billion valuation evaporated. Holmes was convicted in 2022 on four fraud and conspiracy counts related to the company and has maintained her innocence.